Infinito Tempore
by Spark Writer
Summary: This is an ongoing collection of one-shots and other shorts from the Penderwick universe. Each chapter is stand alone. Some are gen, and some are Skye/Jeffrey or other pairings. This is just a little bit of everything :D
1. Promise

_Chapter One: Promise_

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_..._

No one inside the car was speaking. The only sounds were that of raindrops drumming on the windshield and the faint rasp of Hound's snores. Martin Penderwick kept his eyes on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles looked as if they would burst out of his skin. His face was oddly twisted and, behind him, Jayne was reading _The Wizard of Oz_ through a stream of noiseless tears.

Rosalind sat numbly in the passenger seat. She was lost in a vortex of shock and grief; her skin itched and crawled with the horror of it. Everything was wrong, everything was empty and lacking and unfamiliar, and it made her want to vomit.

Her father swung onto Gardam Street and pulled into the driveway. And, without a word, Rosalind wrenched the car door open and took off down the street. She was running and tripping, her shiny new dress shoes flying off her feet and landing in a puddle somewhere behind her.

She tore past rows of technicolor mailboxes and neat little beds of flowers that reminded her of death and feeble condolences. The sting of asphalt on her bare feet faded as she sprinted onto the stretch of weeds and grass at the end of the street, and into the Quigley Woods.

She stopped beside a colossal tree stump, and bent double, struggling to taste oxygen. She had thought she was ready. She'd thought she had prepared herself for the great loss. Yet here she was: good, well-behaved, responsible Rosalind bolting barefoot through the woods, as though she could escape the devastating reality of the situation if she just ran a little farther.

She sat down in the mud. The air was thick with the sharp scent of crushed pine needles and she breathed deeply, fighting back a shiver. What would happen, she wondered, if she did not bother with going home and simply left herself to crumble away? After all, life had been turned on its head with vicious finality, and she no longer recognized anything. She could stay right here, gazing unseeingly into the distance. Rotting away. Already dead.

"Rosy?"

Rosalind looked up and saw Skye staring at her from several yards down the path. She looked small, like a little blue-eyed apparition. Rosalind wished she would leave.

"Are you okay?"

Skye's voice trembled on the last syllable, and Rosalind watched her, unblinking. It was a ridiculous question. Of course she wasn't okay. None of them were okay. This was her sister being perfunctory and polite, and it infuriated her. She never lost her temper or displayed intense emotions of any kind. At the age of eight, Rosalind was already adept at expressing herself with eloquence and grace. But she couldn't do that now. Not this time. She desperately wanted to tell someone how she felt, but the right words didn't seem to exist. Nothing in the English language would ever do justice to the pain inside, which bled outward like an inarticulate wound.

"No," she said finally, in little more than a whisper. "Are you?"

Skye shook her head, flinching as a raindrop struck her cheek and trickled down it like a tear.

"Come here," said Rosalind. She struggled to her feet and held out her arms to Skye, who hurtled into the embrace with shocking speed.

"Shhh," Rosalind murmured, as Skye began to sniffle. She pressed her cheek to the top of Skye's blonde head and closed her eyes.

"I don't want to her to be gone," Skye said, after a moment of tearful silence.

"Neither do I."

They pulled back and looked at each other.

"Batty won't remember her."

"No," said Rosalind. "She will. We'll make her remember. We'll tell her stories about Mommy and how much she loved us, and how she laughed when you tripped in the middle of the supermarket and spilled tomato puree everywhere."

"That wasn't funny," said Skye.

"Promise me you'll help her remember," Rosalind continued. "Swear it."

Skye worked a muscle in her jaw and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I promise," she said. "I don't break my promises."

"I know."

They were linking pinkies when their father came running toward them, glasses askew and in danger of falling off his face all together. Jane was bobbing along behind him, looking nervously at baby Batty, whom their father was clutching under one arm like a football.

He skidded to a stop beside Skye and Rosalind, manuevering Batty into a safer position while wrapping his free arm around them. Rosalind smothered her face in the sleeve of his suit jacket—which still smelled horribly of white lilies and candle wax—and cried.

Later, she could never recall how long she and her family stayed in the woods, murmuring broken things and smothering sobs. All she could remember was the way they held each other—not moving, just breathing.

Connected, as the storms of pain roiled on the horizon and they existed in the eye of it all, together.

...

...

_(A/N): This is an ongoing collection of one-shots and other shorts from the Penderwick universe. Each chapter is stand alone. Some are gen, and some are Skye/Jeffrey or other pairings. This is just a little bit of everything :) We'll see what kind of response I get on this one and that will help me decide if I should continue. And please, prompt me! I love a good prompt. :D_

_Infinto Tempore is a Latin phrase that means "infinite moments," or "infinite time."_


	2. Danger

_Chapter Two: Danger_

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"This was a horrible idea," wheezed Jeffrey, holding his smartphone high in hopes of piercing the gloom with its fragile electronic glow.

"It's your fault," Skye chided. "That was an expensive soccer ball and I told you to not to drop it."

"Yes, but I was hoping you might have a little perspective," Jeffrey muttered, looking around at the grease and mud smeared subway tracks. "Churchie's going to kill us or have an aneurysm."

"Or both," Skye said helpfully. "Stop worrying. The conductor said the next subway is scheduled to arrive in five min—"

"TRAIN!"

The warning was almost a scream, strangers crying out from the distant platform as the rails began to hum.

"I told you!"

"It's not my fault it's early!" Skye shouted. "Keep moving! There's no time for us to turn back."

'We can't outrun a subway, Skye! It's infinitely faster than we are!"

"Just shut up and run!"

Skye tried to focus her mind on the uneven ground in front of her rather than the awful, keening din that was choking the confined space of the tunnel. Their footfalls were thunderous, magnified tenfold, and Jeffrey was quickly surpassing her. The train sounded its horn, a deafening shriek, and Skye yelped in shock as she was abruptly dragged to one side.

"Hold your breath!" Jeffrey ordered, pressing Skye into the narrow alcove. Pipes dug into her lower vertebrae as Jeffrey crowded her close. The gentle ridge of his hips pressed against her belly, the expanse of his chest pinning her in place as he braced his hands either side of her head. Skye's fists clenched in Jeffrey's jacket, pulling the polyester taut as time ran out.

It was the end of the world: bone rattling noise and fear, adrenaline and breathless, useless oxygen, and Jeffrey's heart drumming against her own, the only thing Skye understood amid the chaos.

Seconds later, the train was gone.

Jeffrey pulled back and away from Skye. He peered into her eyes, sharply focused as if scanning her for any sign of injury. But there was a hint of softness to it that had Skye's heart skittering and stomach clenching. At last, Jeffrey smiled, his eyes bright with relief.

"I'll buy you another soccer ball," he said, jumping nimbly down from the alcove, "if you'll just promise to get out of here."

Skye burst into helplessly remorseful peals laughter. Her limbs were quivering and she nearly toppled as she slipped back onto the tracks.

"It's a deal."

"Good."

Jeffrey grabbed her hand firmly in his own, and they took off, sprinting toward safety as though demons were on their heels.

...

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_(A/N): I am well aware of the fact that no one would be let onto train tracks under normal circumstances. Sometimes I have to deviate from reality for the sake of entertaining fiction. Bear with me. :) _


	3. Insults

_Chapter Three: Insults_

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"Your sister's a freak."

The words hung in the air, acrid and foul, blasting along Skye's eardrums and through her veins in a rush of sudden fury. And that was all it took.

She exploded into action: a sharp punch to the solar-plexus and, as Evan bent double, a knee to the nose.

"Don't. Ever. Say. That. Again," hissed Skye, punctuating each word with a hard knuckled blow to her classmate's stomach.

Evan staggered backward, his eyes round with shock. He made a feeble attempt at ducking, but Skye followed the movement with surprising agility and shoved him into the row of lockers. The metallic clang echoed along the corridor.

"You'll learn not to insult my sisters in front of me." She glared at him, pinning him in place with truly inspiring hatred. Evan gave a strangled wheeze, struggling against Skye's grip. There was a shrill yell from behind; Jane pushing her way through the crush of onlookers while shrieking desperately at Skye to be _careful_.

Skye twisted her head to catch Jane's eye for the briefest of moments, but Evan saw his opportunity and writhed out of her grip, propelling his clenched fist into the side of her skull.

"_Ah_!"

Skye clutched her head, ears ringing, and fell back against the lockers. Evan sprinted off, chortling with a sick kind of laughter. His friends bolted after him.

"Skye!" Jane cried, dashing over. She peeled one of Skye's hands away from her head and peered at it. "You're bleeding."

Skye opened her eyes and gazed blearily down at her left hand. Sure enough, a sanguine swell of blood was beading from a cut on her knuckle.

She looked defiantly at her sister and rubbed the blood away with her shirtsleeve before it could drip. "He called you a freak. Did you expect me to suffer that kind of abuse in silence?"

"I'm not worth this," said Jane, gesturing at the rapidly blooming smudge of purple on Skye's cheekbone. "You're probably in loads of trouble and you could have broken your arm or something!"

"Or his."

"Be serious."

"I am. Deadly serious. I try to control my temper, but I—I can't not fight back. Especially when it's for people I care about." Skye frowned uncomfortably at the linoleum tiles beneath her feet, painfully awkward in her displays of affection.

Jane's anger seemed to fade a little. "You do know that at least half of Sabrina Starr's best qualities can be attributed to you."

Skye raised an eyebrow. "Has it ever occurred to you that that might be a stupid idea?"

Jane rummaged through her book bag for a Band-aid and applied it to the cut.

"It's not stupid. See, she can be stubborn and fierce and mad as a hatter, but despite all of that—or, maybe, because all of that—the world ends up falling irreparably in love with her."

"Doubtful," said Skye, but her mouth quirked up in spite of itself.

...

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_(A/N): PM me with any prompt ideas! Thanks for reading and I hope you're enjoying this so far. :)_


	4. Illness and Dreams

_Chapter Four: Illness/Dream_

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_(A/N): __Ehhhh…I thought I should warn you...this started out as a minor sickfic and ended up morphing into an intense AU dream type of thingy. In the next chapter we'll be back to the more effervescent Birdsall inspired style, but I thought I'd post this just for fun. I apologize if it's not your cup of tea. You know how I love my AU Skye/Jeffrey. I try not to overindulge, but sometimes I must succumb to temptation. :D Happy New Year to all of you and happy new Sherlock season, if you watch it! *fangirling*_

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_... _

The staccato pulse of discomfort began early that morning, throbbing at the base of Jeffrey's skull like a painful metronome.

He rarely suffered headaches, but this one chased him through all his classes, building steadily into something more agonizing. Disorienting ripples appeared at the periphery of his vision and waves of pain gathered continual momentum behind his temples, crushing his sinuses and pressing on his ear drums. It was terrible.

He slunk back to his dormitory at five-thirty after a truly awful practice session with his clarinet tutor. He passed several classmates on the way, all of whom were slightly put off by his lack of a polite smile and greeting. The headache's haze of discomfort made it nearly impossible for him to act like himself.

The whole ordeal of getting from the school to the dorms was unpleasant. Jeffrey's muscles were working, but only in an estimation of their normal manner. It was as if he had forgotten how tall he was, so each step either fell short or jolted him until it felt as if his teeth were going to rattle loose.

And his mind was tangled. Instead of thinking of the symptoms in a logical way, Jeffrey's brain turned them into musical metaphors. The migraine's dull throb was an andante beat; the build of pressure a discordant crescendo; the oily feeling in his throat a prelude to nausea. He found his way into his room and shut the door, squinting in the ray of afternoon sun that flowed through the window. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he used the other to yank the velvet curtains across, plunging the room into welcome darkness.

Too tired to do anything but slip out of his shoes, he sank onto the bed. Even the gentle thump of his head hitting the pillow manifested itself as a hammering burst of pain near his cerebellum. Every sense was exaggerated, every sound magnified, every sliver of light almost blinding. Jeffrey extended his bent legs one at a time, carefully and delicately, as though they were made of spun glass instead of calciferous bone.

At last, he was alone in the blank canvas of his room. He was dimly aware that he was experiencing sensory hallucinations: a point where memory and sensation blurred together into a bewildering swirl of data that left him pressing his body harder against the bed, desperate to ground himself. The dry paragraphs of his biology textbooks hadn't come close to encapsulating the awful sensation. He was lying in bed, but he swore he could feel the glossy wood of the wardrobe against his palm, the cold flash of the windowpane against his cheek and the mirror's baleful eye watching.

His whole world had turned on its head, and he longed for something familiar to cling to. When at last sleep rose to claim him, he succumbed without a struggle.

...

_Something was brushing at the edge of Jeffrey's consciousness, a feather-light, shy kind of touch over the knuckles of his right hand. It was enough to peel back the dark shelter of his sleep in steady increments, and he opened his eyes, met with a sandy, vast stretch of desert all around. His head still ached, but it was no longer a sickening pound. He could feel a golden, glowing pity nearby and turned his head to stare up at the sky. It was a crackling blue. He blinked, trying to adjust to the mind-boggling hue. _

_"Feeling better?"_

_Jeffrey frowned and hauled himself into a sitting position. Skye Penderwick was sitting cross-legged in front of him. It was like some sort of strange mirror image. She wasn't wearing her usual jeans and tee shirt—instead, she was in a gauzy dress that matched her eyes._

_"Skye?"_

_She raised an eyebrow, close to smiling. "Jeffrey."_

_"I don't understand… Where are we?"_

_She shrugged a shoulder. "I dunno."_

_"It looks like some kind of desert."_

_"Could be."_

_Skye was watching him, inexplicably content. It was as though she was waiting for him to make his move, and had all the time in the world to do so._

_A breath of wind sent the sand whirling, and for a moment Jeffrey felt as if he and Skye were suspended in a churning cloud of gold. Oddly, none of the sand made it into his eyes. In fact, it never made contact with his skin at all. There was an invisible barrier between himself and the strange, desert landscape he'd found himself in, which roused the first stirrings of doubt. Was this real or merely a figment of his imagination? Yet Skye, with her cerulean dress and striking blonde hair, had never looked more real, more _there_. _

_The wind settled, and the sand sifted back into place. There was a pause. And then—_

_"Weird, isn't it."_

_"What?" asked Jeffrey, wincing as a prickle of pain twinged at the base of his skull._

_"Life."_

_Well, that certainly did not seem like Skye. The Skye he knew would scoff at such lazily philosopic conversation._

_"And people," she added. "People are weird, too."_

_Jeffrey was quiet, gazing at her with tired eyes. "How so?"_

_"We're so averse to change. It frightens us. We'll do anything to avoid it."_

_He frowned. "That's because most change is frightening." _

_"No, change is interesting. Change is magnificent. That's all life is. Just a series of changes leading into the next and the next and the next, until the day it all comes to an end."_

_"The day you die?"_

_Skye didn't answer._

_Confused, Jeffrey curled his knees beneath his chin and cocked his head. "People are afraid of knowledge, too, sometimes. They don't want to know too much."_

_"Ignorance is bliss," Skye murmured with an acknowledging nod._

_"Exactly. Why are people so afraid of knowledge?"_

_She laughed. "Because it fuels change."_

_This made Jeffrey think of the Garden of Eden—Eve and the tree and the apple—and he wrinkled his nose as he considered an idea in which he didn't really believe. He'd always thought that was a ridiculous story; who would punish anyone for wanting to know, to learn? But now he was beginning to see why. Some people were afraid of knowledge because it forced them to face the brutal stab of reality, see the myriad of problems that needed to be fixed, and actually do something about them. The very act of facing conflict was terrifying enough to throw them into a permanent state of denial. _

_Then there were people who were afraid of knowledge in others, because that might unveil their hidden lies and deceptions and flaws. Like royalty and presidents, Jeffrey thought, and other people in power. They lived in fear that their foul secrets would be uncovered and displayed before the eyes of the world. So really, the only people afraid of knowledge were those who felt the need to hide from the truth, and those who felt the need to hide it from others. _

_And then there he was, caught somewhere in the middle. Same as always._

_Jeffrey blinked and looked up at Skye. She was scooping handfuls of sand and letting the grains trickle through her fingers._

_A thought struck him. "If humans are so averse to change, why do we crave it?"_

_Skye rolled her neck in a lazy circle and fixed Jeffrey with that penetrating gaze. "It's like New Year's Eve."_

_"Hmm?"_

_"People celebrate the coming year—the future—but at the same time hate that the past is fading away."_

_"Isn't it like that all the time?" Jeffrey breathed a sigh. He felt confused and inexplicably lonely. "We step out to look over the cliff because we want to know what's at the bottom, but at the same time we're terrifed and all we really want is for it to be over."_

_"You reach out to touch the flame and yank your hand back because it burns. Yes," said Skye. "It's like that all the time."_

_"How awful," said Jeffrey. His vision wobbled at the edges, accompanied by a throb of pain in his temples. The migraine was coming back…_

_"Don't look at it that way. Where would we be without the curiousity that turns into risk and eventually, change?"_

_Definitely not the real Skye. But she went on, leaning closer to Jeffrey as though an invisible thread between them had been pulled taut._

_ "The first rocket—a thing, just a thing, a chunk of metal and chemicals and _humanity_, rose from the earth all because people looked up and thought, What's out there? Change is good."_

_The desert vision twisted like a wet towel being rung out, and Jeffrey knew he was dreaming. _

_"Don't be afraid of it," Skye said, getting to her feet as darkness began to swallow the sandy landscape._

_Jeffrey sucked in a breath of dry air. " Hold on—"_

The image imploded.

He opened his eyes to darkness again and knew the dream was done. The bass throb of his headache had reasserted itself with a vengeance, creating a slick of icy sweat at his temples. He laid there, torn between physical discomfort, confusion, and hot embarrassment. Of course his mind would conjure Skye in his dreams. Of course she would look like a gorgeous, ethereal creature who spoke words of astonishing wisdom.

Of course.

And to think he had tried to digest those butterflies.

Turning his cheek into the pillow, Jeffrey heaved a sigh and tried to forget about the gossamer dress and those eyes and that overwhelming presence. What a strange dream it had been, with an even stranger conversation. Bits and pieces of it swirled through his head, echoing along the cracked pathways of his mind.

The gleam of sun on sand, the whirl of Skye's hair, a sussurus of wind, and murmurings about life and humans and _change_.

It was, without a doubt, the best dream he'd ever had. Perhaps he should wish for migraines more often.

...

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_More ramblings: Yes I am going to say thank you in my author notes and yes it's going to be sappy and yes, you're going to listen. :D **Thank you **so much to those of you who have graced me with a review in the comments section. I know you know this already, but you're all super inspiring and motivating and a perfectly delightful group of readers. I'm so grateful. And thanks to everyone who's read or is reading this fic. You're awesome-but you're a Penderwicks fan so we already knew that. Anyway. xD_

_If you're on tumblr, TUMBLR ME so we can have lots of adventures and shenanigans, and cry over fictional characters together. Cheers._


	5. Synesthesia

_Chapter Five: Synesthesia_

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When Batty was just shy of nine years old, she asked Skye a most bizarre question.

"...What does Wednesday sound like?"

"Wednesday doesn't sound like anything," Skye had replied, fingers dancing over the keys of her calculator. "That's a ridiculous question."

Batty raised one eyebrow. "It sounds like fingernails scraping on unfinished wood."

Skye scribbled an trigonometric function in her notebook then set it aside, giving Batty her undivided attention. "What do you mean?"

"Every time I hear the word Wednesday, or think about it, I hear the same sound in my head."

"Weird," said Skye. She furrowed her brow. "Do other words have sounds?"

Batty gave her older sister a look that suggested she was being quite stupid. "Every word has a sound. I thought that's how it was for everyone."

Skye shook her head, itching to log onto laptop and research the peculiar symptoms. "Did you tell anyone else about this?"

"Nope."

"Not even Rosy?"

"I said something about it when I was going to sleep the other night. I think she thought I was too tired to make sense."

"Well, at the very least, don't tell Jane. She'll have an incessant amount of questions and will probably model her next character after you. Or something."

"They also have colors."

"Hmm?"

"Words. They have colors."

_"Weird."_

Skye tried to imagine what Batty's world was like. She wondered if each time Batty opened her eyes there were flickers of hues that had no place in the scene and strange ripples of sound that assaulted her eardrums. Words should not have associated colors, nor sounds. It made Skye's skull buzz with vertigo.

"Do names have color?" She asked after a moment.

"Mm-hm."

"What's mine?"

Batty grinned. A bright, blistering color sputtered briefly in her mind's eye.

"Orange. Yours is orange."

Skye frowned. "I wouldn't describe myself as a very orange person."

"I know," said Batty. "That's why it's so funny."

...

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_(A/N): There are two reasons why I wrote this. One, it has always been head-canon for me that Batty has synesthesia, given the fact that she seems like a more artistically and musically affected soul. Two, I have synesthesia, so I can write about it with a fair amount of accuracy and credibility. It's definitely not something I would ever trade and I believe it makes me think in interesting ways._

_I could have gone into much more depth with this chapter, obviously, but everything is starting up again for the new year and I have so little time to write. Also, I couldn't write yesterday because I had a wedding to attend. XD #the sign of three_

_Here's a brief description of synesthesia: it is a __neuropsychological trait in which the stimulation of one sense causes the automatic experience of another sense. Synesthesia is a genetically linked trait estimated to affect from 2 to 5 percent of the general population. It is a phenomenon that is largely a gift to those who experience it, as many synesthetes have an aptitude for the arts, a strong sense of creativity, and increased memory skills._

_**Applesandbanana**s: No, I haven't read The Book Thief, but you have convinced me. I'll check it out as soon as I can. :)_

_…_


	6. Darkness and Light

_Chapter Six: Darkness/Light_

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One moment, the Penderwicks were sitting in the warm glow of lamplight in their living room, enjoying a platter of slightly burnt cookies. Next moment, there was nothing. The houselights went out without warning, throwing them all into crushing darkness.

Skye blinked, remembering the blizzard warnings on television that morning. An angry red banner had wound its way across the screen below the newscaster's smiling face: ninety-five percent chance of blizzard conditions in their geographic location, combined with brutal winds and frigid temperatures. The forecast had apparently caught up with them.

There was an ominous click from the radiator, after which it went silent all together. Without that layer of warmth, brumal cold began seeping into the room like noxious gas.

"Everyone alright?" Mr. Penderwick's voice floated out of the darkness, oddly distorted without a body to go along with it. Skye heard the twin thumps of his feet as he placed them on the floor and rose from the sofa, clothes rustling.

"Where's the door?" he muttered, sounding exceptionally baffled.

"Somewhere behind you," replied Rosalind. "Go to the left and—"

There was a crash, followed by a muffled oath.

"Are you okay?" Jane asked from somewhere to Skye's right. "Are you concussed? Should I go get—"

"Be quiet, Jane." Skye rolled her eyes, her sarcastic gesture lost in the total darkness.

"No, no, I'm fine. I just confused a bookshelf for the door, that's all. I'll find my way out eventually. Maybe if I just—ah."

They heard the dull, defeated click of the useless light switch and a well-spoken and very familiar bit of invective.

_"Te futueo et caballum tuum." _Their father's favorite piece of Latin profanity.

Jane smothered a giggle.

"Hold on," said Skye, remembering the miniature flashlight she kept in her sweatshirt pocket in case of the apocalypse. She extracted the cylindrical device from her pocket and clicked it on, much relieved to see her family's faces illuminated by its feeble glow.

"Wonderful," said Mr. Penderwick. He staggered along the perimeter of the room and toward the door, stumbling into the yawning darkness of the hallway.

"We must have candles around here somewhere," he called over his shoulder, and wandered off, clattering through the gloom.

"Mommy loved candles," Jane said, unbidden, and Skye shot her a sharp look.

"She did, but she didn't like having them around because there was a great possibility we'd knock one over and burn the house down."

"Not a chance," sniffed Jane, plucking the tatty, maroon blanket from where it was draped over an armchair and unfurling it. "I was very careful about those sort of things."

"You still put metal spoons in the microwave," Skye reminded her.

Jane looked affronted and wrapped the blanket around Batty's hunched form.

"Are you cold, Batty?" asked Rosalind.

Batty nodded, curls bobbing.

"Of course she's cold. These are practically Arctic conditions." Skye cast a longing glance at the fireplace. "If we hadn't plugged up the chimney we could light a fire to warm things up."

The little flashlight flickered in warning, and she gave it a dark look, tapping it against her palm and groaning as the beam snuffed out. Fortunately, their father materialized in the doorway seconds later, a candlestick clutched in each hand.

"Don't set these down," he warned, holding one out to Rosalind and the other to Skye. "The slightest movement can upset the balance of a taper and the next thing you know the whole place is an inferno."

"Candlesticks." Skye blinked, pulling a face as she considered the likelihood of them having such a thing. They seemed incredibly old-fashioned and more reminiscent of_ A Christmas Carol _than modern day.

Jane made a small noise of pleasure as she admired the candlestick in Rosalind's hand. "This is marvelous! Where have you been keeping these, Daddy?"

Mr. Penderwick laughed. "The real mystery is how I got lucky enough to come across them. I had no idea we still had candlesticks. Elizabeth must have gotten them years ago."

His mouth twisted in an odd little smile. Noticing Batty under the blanket, he knelt and peered into her eyes. "And how is my beautiful Batty?"

"Cold," Batty managed, her jaw tight with the effort it took not to shiver. Beside her, Hound whined his agreement.

"Rosy, take your candle and go gather all the blankets you can find. We'll have to sleep here tonight—the bedrooms are too cold to be useful for anything except preserving cuts of raw meat."

Rosalind whisked off, and Mr. Penderwick pulled an assortment of multicolored votives from his pockets. He lit a match and fed the flame to each wick until there were little pools of mellow golden light chasing off the twilight.

"Much better," he said cheerily, slipping out of his jacket and draping it over Jane's tee shirt clad shoulders.

Jane stopped shivering, tipping her head to smile at their father before the view beyond the window caught her eye, making her stare. Her expression was enough to make Skye turn, and the two of them observed the blizzard whirling down outside, worse than before—a dense curtain of white that twirled in the wind's dying gasps.

"Where are you going?" Skye asked, as Batty wrapped the blanket tightly around her and stood. She climbed over the chaos of furniture, socked feet padding across the floor before she pushed the window casement open.

"Geez, Batty, it's sub-zero weather out there. Close the window before we—"

"Shhhh." Batty leaned against the windowsill, outlined by the gunmetal grey murk of the town beyond. She looked ethereal, as though summoned up by the storm itself. She was so silent and still that she looked as if she was carved from marble. Only the delicate shift of muscles with every breath and the occasional blink told a different story.

The tranquility was so unusual that Skye climbed to her feet, abandoning the sofa and gripping the narrow taper tightly as she navigated her way to Batty's side.

Not keen on being left out of anything, Jane nudged in on Skye's other side, staring out at the swirl of snow.

Skye leaned on her elbows and looked out as her breath steamed in the air.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sighing when Batty gave her slanted kind of look and gestured to the world outside. "It's just snow."

She gave the weather a sullen stare and shivered as the wind invaded the house, chasing a small whirl of flakes. "In case you forgot, we live in the northeastern part of the country. We've seen snow a million times."

"Don't look," said Batty. "Listen."

Skye swallowed a sigh, reluctantly doing as she was told. Her eyes fluttered shut and she let her other senses rule: the faint scent of burning wood and the creak of branches in the wind, taste of ice on each breath melding with the icy gusts that tickled her face. Jane nestled closer, resting her head in the soft curve between Skye's head and shoulder.

For once, Skye let her be.

Abruptly, the hush of rustling fabric overwhelmed them as they were enfolded in a large quilt.

"Better?" whispered Rosalind, squeezing into the narrow space on Batty's left side.

"Shhhh," Batty said for the second time. "We're listening."

"Ah," said Rosalind. "Sorry."

The sisters fell quiet.

"What exactly are we supposed to be hearing?" Skye muttered after a moment. "There's the wind, but other than that it's—oh!"

Her eyes snapped open, and Batty's smile told her she had been inexcusably slow. Batty had not been expecting them to hear anything. It was the absence of noise that was astounding. The blizzard did to Cameron what nothing else could achieve. The town had stopped.

There were no sounds of traffic, no hum of buses and cars. No flights roared overhead on their way to better places, and even the few persistent street lights could do little more than cast faint halos amidst the fluff of snow.

"It's so quiet," Jane whispered, as Skye balanced her candle on the narrow windowsill. The flame flickered, a small beacon of warmth and comfort in a city reduced to wilderness once more. "There's nothing to hear."

"Almost nothing," Mr. Penderwick corrected.

Skye hadn't noticed him sneak over to join them. Iridescent flakes had caught in his dark hair, making him look as if he was sprinkled with diamonds. He put his hands on Batty's shoulders. "Listen again."

Skye did as he said, running a thumb over the hem of the quilt as she strained her ears. It took a few moments, but at last she heard it. It was odd, like the glassy hum of sand blowing across the ocean dunes. A silky static filled the air; a faint hush that hissed in Skye's ears and reminded her of the time she had passed out while putting on her war makeup for Jane's ridiculous play.

"What is that?" asked Jane.

"The noise snow makes as it falls," Martin said with a shrug. "I don't think there's a word for it in English."

"Peace," Rosalind supplied after a moment's thought. "Not quite silence, but almost."

"I can't believe it's so quiet," murmured Batty. "We could be the only people left in the world."

"At least I would be in good company," said Mr. Penderwick.

He smiled, and it was not a false, forced grin as was so often painted on his face since the death of Elizabeth Penderwick, but a beautifully real one that made Skye's heart burst a little.

"Agreed," she said, raising her candle so it illuminated their frost pinkened faces.

The year was heading towards its inevitable end but, within the shelter of Gardam Street, the Penderwicks entrusted themselves to each other's care. Together, they drew closer to the gleaming promise of a new beginning.

"Now who's getting sentimental," whispered Jane, giggling when Skye threatened to push her out the window.

Sometimes, all it takes is one moment for everything to change. Darkness lifts, and in the light of realization, a whole new path appears for those bold enough to take it. No one could be sure of what lay ahead, but now more than ever they were ready to find out, ready to lay sadness to rest and plunge bravely into the future.

A gentle tease, a warm laugh, and in the fragile glow of a thousand emerging stars, their world changed for the better.

...

...

_(A/N): I'm sorry for the fluff. Truly. :D Think of this as an apology for all the avant garde AU madness I put you through. Several things inspired this chapter. My best friend gave me the prompt "hope" which made me think of the dichotomy of darkness and light. I decided to use it in a physical sense-blizzard blackout and candle light-as well as metaphorical. Sometimes I use words in the spirit of their meaning rather than their concrete definitions. No, I'm not sorry. :) The idea for the snow storm was born out of the recent cold snap we've been having here in America. The "family love, new beginning" thread at the end was partially inspired by U2's beautiful new song: **Ordinary Love**. Please give it a listen. It embodies a lot of the emotion I felt for the Penderwicks while writing this. The rest was simply down to my own feelings for these characters. Bless them. ;) _

___Also, "Te futueo et caballum tuum" basically means "Screw you and the horse you rode in on." ____Great, isn't it._


	7. Jane

_Chapter Seven: Jane_

...

...

Jane lived in a universe apart from everyone else.

She was like a young butterfly, iridescent and airborne and headed for the stratosphere. Her thoughts were not cast away by a mind that had been trained to reject every spark of whimsy and inspiration. She cherished them; used them to craft her blemished but beautiful worlds.

When the rest of humanity obsessed over external interactions, she sank into the vibrant depths of her own mind. She propped her elbows on her desk and stared into her imagination with reverent inquisition.

Jane was helplessly attracted to all things bright.

At dawn, she sometimes crawled from between her covers and crept to the window to watch the sun rise out of the blackness on their side of the world. She observed it, describing it to herself as though it was some godly event. Which it really was—the glowing orb straining upwards as dove gray sky gave way to a fiery knife-edge on the horizon. She hummed a faint strain of _Hedwig's Theme_ as the darkness fell to the wayside, shadows retreating. Cameron's artificial lights faded to insignificance as the sun took its place above the treeline.

Had anyone been watching, they would have been transfixed by the chestnut of her curls agleam and her eyes, glistening with private joy. The soft rays painted Gardam street gold for a moment, and she sat there taking it in, bursting with a strange, wild love as she tried to remember how to breathe.

Jane was, quite simply, a creature of the sun.

While others toiled in the dull shade of reality, she lingered in the light.

It was where she belonged.

...

...

_(A/N): This is my little love letter to Jane, who is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting but sorely underrepresented characters in the Penderwicks. __Jane is universal. She is vivid and imaginative and romantic. She is a writer, a creator, a dreamer. She spends her time getting into the minds of people who only live on paper. She is melodramatic and inspired and illuminated. She is us._


	8. The Day They Met

_Chapter Eight: The Day They Met_

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...

_(A/N): **WARNING - **This is not canon. I have always believed there is no place or time in which Jeffrey Tifton and Skye Penderwick wouldn't have met. If it hadn't been Arundel it would have been somewhere else. But where? And how? Here is another way that this beautiful partnership might have begun. _

...

"Stupid_. Stupid._ I am stupid. I'm a colossal moron, a horrid idiot, and a blundering fool."

The chemistry textbook lay open on the faintly greasy tabletop, its pages a hectic swirl of digits and symbols and equations that suddenly made no sense. Skye slammed her mug of peppermint tea down with such force that the salt and pepper shakers rattled violently, and the napkin dispenser nearly slid over the table's edge.

A neighboring group of teenagers shot her a dubious look. She ignored them, clutching her head with white-knuckled fingers.

"Think," she hissed. "Just think. The reactants in the chemical reaction are methane and oxygen. If the products are carbon dioxide and water—" She broke off.

Nothing.

She was as stymied as before. It was as if someone had accessed her brain's on/off switch and flicked it off, leaving her in a terrifying state of mental paralysis. Coupled with the fact that she was in college, recovering from a relationship with a boy who had come to hate her for being an "unfeeling automaton," and cruelly deprived of sleep, she was feeling very wretched indeed.

Skye closed her her textbook, experiencing a knife-edge of horror as she remembered that she had an exam the following day.

She was going to fail.

She pictured herself receiving her graded test with a loathsome F in the top right corner. She was going to be a disappointment in academics, as well as everything else. It was inexorable, inevitable, irreversible.

"Stupid," she repeated. "Infinitely stupid."

Skye fiddled numbly with her mechanical pencil; pressed the lead into the vein shot underside of her wrist. It bit into her flesh in an oddly satisfying way, and she gave it a slight twist, grimacing when it punctured her skin.

Flashes of memories she would rather forget swirled to the forefront of her mind. Moments of pain, letdown, and loss; moments when she'd fought a losing battle against her temper, moments when her control had ruptured and resulted in her hurting the people she cared about most, moments when everything had gone terribly, shockingly wrong.

Skye had never been ordinary, so it only seemed fitting that her moments of failure ran deeper that of the average person. If most people's failures were bad, hers were catastrophic. And they were always, always her fault.

Gritting her teeth, Skye jabbed the lead hard into her wrist and watched as blood began to pool around its tip.

She dropped the pencil when a waiter neared her table, making his hourly rounds with the decaf coffee. She forced a smile and was instantly disgusted with her ability to feign happiness. Jane had once read her a quote about something like that, something about pretend happiness being the worst kind of sadness in the world.

"Do you need something for that?"

Skye turned her head and looked into a pair of incandescent green eyes. They were cut grass and dragonfly's wings. Beautiful.

"Sorry?"

"You're bleeding."

She looked down at her wrist, nonplussed. "I'm aware. Thanks anyway."

"Pencils are for writing," said the young man, staring at Skye from the next table over. He gave her a look with one eyebrow raised, a stern little gaze that ignited an odd duet of mortification and gratitude. "You might want to rethink your current usage. That's a writing implement, not a dagger."

He curtailed his comment with a brief nod and lowered his eyes to his newspaper.

"Are you always this interfering?"

He glanced up, slightly taken aback. "I was only being neighborly."

"You were trying to get me to stop cutting my arm."

"Well, I'm sorry for my inability to stand by and watch a fellow café-goer hemorrhage to death. Do excuse my folly."

There it was. The recognition that Skye Penderwick was a callous, impolite buffoon with no regard for others. He was offended, that much was obvious, and would ignore her from that point on.

Except…

He was not ignoring her. He was gazing right at her—with warmth, not Arctic apathy.

"Exam stress?" he asked. "I recognize the signs. I once ate my own eraser in an advanced calculus final."

Skye frowned. "You're a student?"

"At music school, yes. But I take other classes on the side."

"I'm a physics major."

"Ah."

"I convinced myself to take an organic chemistry course on top of everything else."

"Do you regret it?"

"Fiercely."

He laughed. "Take heart. The semester ends soon and then you won't have to grapple with organic chemistry for the rest of your existence."

"Hmm. That's an oddly cheering thought."

"I'm glad."

They smiled at each other. A beat passed.

"I'm Jeffrey," said the boy.

"I'm Skye."

"It's good to meet you."

…

Over the course of the next four hours, Jeffrey bought them both sandwiches. Then Skye bought a large fudge brownie to share. Then Jeffrey bought them tea.

They talked. They played with paper straw wrappers, twisting them into ridiculous shapes. They laughed.

It ended after dark, with empty mugs and the conversation being cut short by a dark haired barista standing over them, turning the closing sign over and over in her hands.

"Sorry, but you'll have to take it somewhere else."

So they did. They took it to the streets. But the streets were dreary and November was cold. So they took it to _Johnny's One-Stop Market._

But riding a shopping cart down the aisle while Skye's hair streamed behind her as she fought back roaring laughter was apparently "very inappropriate," and "get out of here or I'll call the cops!"

So they took it to the roof.

She and Jeffrey sat cross legged on the chilly cement, facing each other under a night sky pocked with stars.

They ate cold mushroom pizza and talked about the possibility of life on other planets and forgot about textbooks for a while.

And it was wonderful.

"Thank you," Skye said suddenly, looking out over the darkened street. "For listening to my problems and taking my mind off them. I needed the distraction."

"I pride myself in my ability to distract stubborn women with blue eyes from the more stressful aspects of higher education." Jeffrey said the words with a smile, but there was an odd, bitter edge to his voice that seemed out of place in the mellow darkness.

Skye's stomach dropped a little as she realized what he was thinking.

"No, hang on. I should have worded that differently. You saw me and somehow knew how bad things were and you didn't look the other way. Which is more than most people ever do. I'm not a pleasant person," said Skye. "People frustrate me, life frustrates me, chemistry frustrates me. I frustrate myself. And right when all that frustration was about to burst, you intruded and it was—good. More than a distraction."

She swallowed and fell silent.

Jeffrey stared at her, his eyes wide and lips slightly parted. Then, to her utter astonishment, he blushed and glanced away. But before he could manage anything more than a fumbling effort at articulating himself, his cellphone rang. The sound was a sharp, unwelcome cry.

"It's my mother," he muttered and stumbled to his feet.

Jeffrey's mother was interfering as well, thought Skye, but not in the good way. She could hear a piercing, nasal voice asking about delayed trains and heavy traffic and did Jeffrey need picking up and did he have a jacket with him and why hadn't he called and why did he think it was okay to put her through this kind of worry and please get to the train station immediately and—

So they climbed down from their celestial perch, helping each other and still managing to scrape their elbows and knees. When they reached the sidewalk, Jeffrey fidgeted a little, tugging on his upturned collar with nervous fingers. He turned away and Skye was sure everything was over for approximately seven seconds before he paused and doubled back.

"Walk with me?"

In physics, Skye had learned about electrons and protons. One went round the other, a perfect microcosmic version of the earth and the sun. They couldn't be kept apart, that was the thing. One was positive and the other was negative and no one could stop electromagnetic force.

"I thought you'd never ask."

So they started walking. Footsteps in sync, elbows brushing; two strangers that had been pulled inexorably into each other's orbits.

And it was suddenly, magnificently, exactly what they needed.

...

...

_Review?_


	9. Batty

_Chapter Nine: Batty_

_..._

_..._

It's no surprise that one of Batty's favorite books is _Where the Wild Things Are._ She's a wild thing herself, that little whirl of dark curls and quiet incandescence. The world frightens her, but she makes up for outward hesitancy with inward joy, the kind that resonates in every bone, organ, and cell of her body, beating like a tell-tale heart: yes, yes, _yes_.

She takes solace in nature, the wild place of rushing wind and fluttering leaves and vines that coil and twist around mossy branches. She dashes in the blooming vegetation, plowing her way through thickets of ferns and blue lilies. Mud paints itself on the bare canvas of her skin, blossoms settle on her shoulders, sunshine illumines streaks of honey and toffee in her hair. In the forest, she is fearless. She will go places she has never gone before—treetops and stream beds and heavily graffitied old bridges.

Rosalind likes to think, Skye likes to understand, and Jane likes to create, but Batty likes to _feel_. Her senses are invested in every action she takes.

Darting between trees in dizzying sunlight, she hums an infinite tune. And after a while, she achieves what she comes for. She finally tastes the forest's rough edges, breathes its myriad of scents, listens to its vibrant, orchestral roar.

It's quite something.

In the back of her mind, there is always a voice of reason reminding her of things she should be doing. Deadlines, responsibilities, tasks…absolutes that clash with her ethereal little realm.

But Batty is a wild thing.

So she quickens her pace and dives after a scampering rabbit, losing herself to the woodland blur.

...

...

_(A/N:) I love Batty Penderwick. That is all._


End file.
